Inharmonies
The exhibit Cognitive Dissonances, by the artist Vick Garaventa from São Paulo, comes at a very opportune moment, in a time when looking at another can be risky, and where the construction of an image - often disconnected with that which is real - is achieved by forceps, so as to bury a supposedly personal insignificance. A world in which scenes of exclusion and intolerance succeed each other - and of which various recent examples exist, certainly soon to be replaced by others, such as the sinking of barges of African immigrants in Lampedusa, the disasters of the chemical warfare in Syria, the numerous human scourges throughout Africa.
On her debut in a gallery, Garaventa constructs a space marked by juxtaposition. Fragments are placed side by side, and are at times linked to each other. However, despite the enumeration, the work is not characterized by standardization and exhaustive classification. Each piece seems to seek its own individuality, thus holding its particular traits. There isn't really one single unifying and summating discourse that could refer to practices such as phrenology - a science which, although currently forgotten, had fervent supporters centuries ago, and which deducted moral characteristics from the shape of the skull - and horrors such as eugenics, wielded by the Nazis as the basis for the extermination of the 'degenerate' and 'abnormal'.
There are frequently used elements - skulls, skeletons, bones - which evoke relevant moments in art history, as the vanitas in the still life of the Netherlands, and in other previous genres. Being more about finiteness and about dealing with incompleteness, than about just vanity itself, vanitas, in Cognitive Dissonances, holds links to a humanistic view. The French theorist Jacques Aumont brilliantly discourses about the current relevance of the concept in a semester course at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, covering from Schiele and Munch, to Bergman, and to Mars Attacks! (1996), by Tim Burton1.
A healthy flow of languages and formats predominates the exhibit. Ranging from the paintings for which Garaventa became known in her formative years at FAAP, to the three-dimensional - with the uttermost relevant appropriations, such as Jack, representing a legendary character from the countryside of the United States, collected when the artist lived there - to engravings, and to drawings in particular. The traces and lines so skillfully manipulated by Garaventa point to a strong trend among young artists worldwide: that of elaborate handmade productions - perhaps a response that serves as contrast to a world excessively developed in the virtual realm.
Cognitive Dissonances certainly leaves aside the creepiness and ridicule that could permeate the set of images and ideas in the production of the artist, as could be concluded at first glance. First and foremost, the contemporaneity of the work of Vick Garaventa aims to review the files, cabinets and classifications, and to understand and investigate the complexity of the human, also highlighting the shoddy, the precarious and the ephemeral, so deeply habitual and close.
Mario Gioia, April 2014
1. More information on the website of visual artist Isis Gasparini, at: http://isisgasparini.com.br/portfolio/jacques-aumont-na-ecole-de-beaux-arts/